Marijuana has only been illegal for about 1% of its entire history. Unfortunately, it comprises the last 100 years or so and the American Government, along with many others around the world, continues to resist calls to remove cannabis from the list of controlled substances under the 1970 act.

After new- and existing-home sales tumbled in December, expectations were for a modest 0.5% rebound in January (despite plunging mortgage applications and soaring rates). But that did not happen as existing home sales tumbled 3.2% MoM to its lowest level since Aug 2016.

Nearly a decade after the US unleashed its biggest debt-issuance binge in history, doubling the US debt from $10 trillion to $20 trillion under president Obama, which was only made possible thanks to the Fed's monetization of $4 trillion in deficits (and debt issuance), the Fed is starting to get nervous about the (un)sustainability of the US debt.

The Federal Reserve should continue to raise U.S. interest rates this year in response to faster economic growth fueled by recent tax cuts as well as a stronger global economy, Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Robert Kaplan said on Wednesday.

"I believe the Federal Reserve should be gradually and patiently raising the federal funds rate during 2018," Kaplan said in an essay updating his views on the economic and policy outlook.

The institutionalized fraud we are all wrestling with started in earnest in 1933-34 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt arbitrarily allowed foreign powers to presume that all our Trade Names were instead US Foreign Situs Trusts, and subject to salvage for the debts of the bankrupt United States of America, Inc.

Let's pretend you are an American race horse called "Yankee Flyer" and some sharpies decide to pretend that you are a donkey called "Yankee Flyer" instead.

Now, these same con men are responsible for caring for a donkey named "Yankee Flyer" but that doesn't imply that they actually own the donkey or the horse, either, does it?

What FDR did was make a false claim of ownership by induced assumption of both the donkey and the horse. And all he was, was a stable boy.

The Australian Financial Review reported on Sunday that Australia, India, Japan, and the United States are considering an alliance to counter China’s growing influence—in particular, the huge “Belt and Road” trade project undertaken by China.

China’s project, variously known as “One Belt, One Road” and the “New Silk Road,” aims to recreate the legendary trade route across the Near and Far East that endured until the 15th century. The project is a source of enormous influence for China because it involves spending vast sums of money on infrastructure, offering loans to smaller nations along the route, and promising great economic benefits.

Information traffic is a major element of the 21st century incarnation of the Silk Road as well, which raises concerns about both Chinese ideological influence and Chinese censorship of the Internet.

Venezuela’s petro cryptocurrency has become a reality. The country’s government today officially launched the presale of its own cryptocurrency, in hopes that the new digital coin will boost the Venezuelan economy.

Petro is the world's first sovereign cryptocurrency, and is also backed by Venezuela's rich oil reserves, making it particularly appealing.

He explained that cryptocurrencies allow financial transactions to bypass US-controlled financial and economic institutions, pointing out that Washington "keeps on the hook" most of the channels implementing operations with traditional currencies, including digital ones.

Facebook co-Founder Chris Hughes said in a recent interview that the modern digital economy is “going to continue to destroy work” in America.
While speaking about the topic of universal basic income on CNBC, Facebook co-Founder Chris Hughes discussed how the digital economy is affecting the American workforce. Hughes recently published a book titled “Fair Shot: Rethinking Inequality and How We Earn” which suggests that American workers who make less than $50,000 per year should receive a government payment of $500 per month. In order to do this, Hughes suggests taxes on the wealthy be raised by 1 percent.

The plan, which does not raise taxes or increase the deficit at all in order to pay for infrastructure, takes troubled government assets like buildings or debt and sells them off at auction to financial institutions—then turns around and spends the funds raised in the auction sales in two separate ways: Half the money would go directly into the United States Treasury to pay off part of the national debt, while the other half would be evenly distributed to infrastructure projects in the 100 poorest communities in America. Creating what’s known as a “pay-for,” a mechanism by which to fund infrastructure and deficit reduction in this way, isn’t entirely new: Ronald Reagan did something very similar back in 1986 to pay for tax cuts.

Webmaster's Commentary:

We could make a bunch of money selling off all those hundreds of US military bases around the world!

The average age of a first time mum at London’s Chelsea and Westminster hospital is 37, a statistic that tells you everything you need to know about the choices supposedly affluent city dwellers are being forced to make in the capital. For the middle classes, the cost of living in London?—?the cost of getting by?—?long ago went past insane (£17,040: the cost per year of educating a four year-old child at Thomas’s school in Fulham, not including uniform). It’s the incredible price of property, of course, that’s been the engine driving this madness, ratcheting the pressure ever higher on Londoners who don’t own a home while making very wealthy, on paper at least, those who do.

But in a shocking development that's almost guaranteed to contribute to speculation about whether any foul play was involved, the Wall Street Journal reports that one of the country's top crypto regulators was found dead Tuesday.

While some speculated that the cause of death was a heart attack, the official statement - so far - is that the cause of death remains"unknown."

Semiofficial news agency Yonhap reported that Mr. Jung was presumed to have suffered a heart attack and police had opened an investigation into the cause of death. Yonhap also reported that Mr. Jung was found at home. The government spokesman said later that “he died from some unknown cause. He passed away while he was sleeping and [his] heart [had] already stopped beating when he was found dead.”

His death comes barely a month after the country's regulators appeared to settle on a suitable regulatory framework: Crypto exchanges and banks will soon be required to collect customers' names and information.

Authorities investigating a suspected bitcoin-related scam centred in Austria have asked Interpol to help determine whether there might be perpetrators - and victims - of the scheme across Europe.

"Hundreds" of people across Austria have complained of being defrauded by the "Optioment" scheme dealing in the digital currency, Christina Ratz, spokeswoman for the Vienna public prosecutor's office, told AFP on Thursday. Die Presse, a daily, put the number of possible victims as high as 10,000.

Two Austrians have been identified as being accused of fraud in the case, with more suspects possible as the case progresses, Ratz said.

Investors were promised returns of up to four percent per week for investing bitcoins into the opaque scheme, which initially did offer dividends before suddenly collapsing in November.

On Tuesday afternoon, Bloomberg was surprised to learn that as it was going through the 2,416 equity investments of the Florida state pension plan, which amount to over $37 billion in market cap, it found a surprising entry: 41,129 shares in American Outdoor Brands (valued at a meager $528,000, including $306,000 in unrealized profits) according to a Dec. 31 securities filing listing the plan’s holdings. The company, formerly known as Smith & Wesson, is the market of the semiautomatic AR-15 assault rifle that was used in the Valentine's Day shooting on the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

In other words, as Bloomberg puts it, "as Florida teachers grieve over the mass shooting that left 17 students and colleagues dead last week, some of them may be surprised to learn they’ve been helping fund the firearms industry—including the company that made the gun used that bloody Wednesday."

What a load of bullshit. Let’s look at a couple of categories listed below and do a smell test. Everyone knows the prices of TVs have fallen dramatically, but 99% – I don’t think so. I was able to find the price of a 28 inch Samsung TV in 1997 – $750. The same size Samsung TV costs $200 today. That’s a 73% decrease. The good old BLS says the decrease is really 99% because the new TV does so much more. They call this a hedonic adjustment.

Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organised, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it. – Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States (1856-1924)

So you see, my dear Coningsby, that the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes. – Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister (1804-1881)

In the event that the entire economy collapses and food and become scarce, billionaires are looking for high-end places to hold out and await the new world order. Many billionaires are now preparing for the apocalypse, and their survival plans don’t include anyone outside the global elites.

Peter Thiel, the billionaire behind PayPal, is among those tech giants who see New Zealand as a good place to go in the event of an apocalypse. New Zealand is seen as a particularly safe place for billionaires in the event of an apocalypse. In fact, Thiel has bought a $13.5 million 193-hectare section on the shores of Lake Wanaka, although the only building there at the moment is a barn (that can be seen).

Webmaster's Commentary:

At this point, people need to understand that more wars, a market crash, are potentially coming.

And one doesn't have to be a zillionaire to understand the importance of prepping, no matter what the emergency will be.

The world may well not be headed toward an apocalypse, but it looks like there will be some rough things may coming our way.

I know that I sound like a chipped CD, but please; make preparations to have
extra water, food, prescriptions, and a plan to follow should something awful be headed your way.

Find a mode of self-protection with which you, and your family, feel comfortable.

Find like-minded people in your community with whom you can barter, and who will add to the cohesiveness of whatever intentional family you are with.

All of this needs to be done, and right now.

Make sure, if you have kids in school, that you know what the school's policy on letting kids get picked up by their parents, even if it is not the end of the school day.

As the Federal Reserve reported most recently two weeks ago, US consumer non-mortgage debt has never been higher: as of December 31, 2017, US households have a record $1.0 trillion of credit card/revolving loans, a record $1.3 trillion of auto loans and a record $1.5 trillion of student loans.

Among these, credit card and auto loans in particular have been experiencing accelerating delinquencies. As a result, finance companies/banks have been increasing bad debt provisioning to build balance sheet reserves due to expectations of rising defaults. The chart below illustrates the highest reported net charge off rates (NCOs) in years.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Those are some scary numbers, all right.

IF you possibly can, try to get your debt under control, and get your credit cards paid down as quickly as is reasonable.

To protect themselves financially, large banks and credit companies are most probably jack up interests rates intensely as a survival mechanism as a response to all the the defaulting creditors.

Romania’s commitment to increase its defense budget to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) target of 2 percent of GDP has spurred the government to approve a $1 billion purchase of American-made M142 HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System).

Webmaster's Commentary:

Against what other country is Romania planning to use these weapons?!?

Possibly in a US government/NATO jinned up war against Russia?!?

Because at the end of the day, folks, that is at least one of the wonderful, wacky little wars NATO and the US government have been concocting.

From last year, we have the following article by Paul Craig Roberts, talking about a very serious geopolitical "trajectory" moving forward in order to stop the ascent of the ruble and the yuan:

Financial writer Charles Hugh Smith recently sat down for an interview in which he boldly declared that ALL currencies – not just the United States dollar -will see a catastrophic drop during the coming economic collapse. It’s not just the dollar, but every currency backed by government force will fall.

The US Commerce Department has recommended that President Donald Trump impose steep curbs on steel and aluminium imports from China and other countries ranging from global and country-specific tariffs to broad import quotas, according to proposals released on Friday.

China’s Commerce Ministry responded by saying the report was “baseless” and did not accord with the facts, and that China would take necessary steps to protects its interests if the final decision affects China.

The long-awaited unveiling of Commerce’s “Section 232” national security reviews of the two industries contained global tariff options of at least 24% on all steel products from all countries, and at least 7.7% on all aluminium products from all countries.

Trump authorised the probes under a 1962 trade law that has not been invoked since 2001. He has until April 11 to announce his decision on steel import curbs and by April 20 to decide on aluminium restrictions.

President Donald Trump’s lawyers are defending President Barack Obama’s claim that every administration can displace U.S. professionals by granting work permits to an unlimited number of foreign white-collar workers.
Obama’s claim of unlimited outsourcing power creates multiple headaches for Trump’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions as he tries to shut down the 2012 ‘DACA’ program which also provided work-permits to the 800,000 illegals who were also granted “prosecutorial discretion” to stay in the United States.

The legal problem will be showcased February 20 when lawyers will ask a panel of three D.C. judges to shutter the fast-growing “Optional Practical Training” program which provides work permits to at least 300,000 foreign graduates of American colleges each year — and also allows U.S. companies to pocket their OPT employees’ Social Security and Medicaid taxes.

As nearly 250,000 Puerto Ricans remain without power five months after Hurricane Maria struck the island territory—the longest blackout in U.S. history—the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) said Sunday it will reduce its operating reserve to save money, as the island's government moves toward privatizing the authority.

A federal judge denied PREPA a $1 billion loan over the weekend, saying the authority could not prove it needed the additional cash injection. The company will now reduce its reserve by 450 megawatts, saving $9 million per month but likely resulting in more power outages.

The additional instability comes as many residents are waiting for service to be restored, only to be told, according to San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, that repair work has been subcontracted out to companies that have yet to arrive.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Mr. President, a word please; this lack of action on the critical needs of Puerto Rico's infrastructure, coupled with the privatisation of their electrical grid, appears to intelligent people as vulture capitalism, at its horrific worst.

This is a really embarrassing moment for you and your admninistration; and this ridicuous delay is causing the following to happen:

Residents of Puerto Rico do not get to vote in Federal elections; but with the exodous of Puerto Ricans to the US, what happens when many of them become citizens of the US, and have the right to vote?!?

Mr. President, I can assure you that those exiles from their homeland, when they become citizens, are going to remember how they were treated,and in essence, blackmailed, into accepting the privatization of their energy grid over which they had utterly no control, and will vote accordingly in the midterms.

Many of these people have settled in Florida, and will be voting for any, and all Democrats, in the next election.

BRUSSELS is gearing up for a bitter trade war with US and has pledged to fight fire with fire if Washington carries out its threat to introduce import barriers to steel and aluminium products from Europe.

Walmart reported Q4 non-GAAP EPS of $1.33 (GAAP $0.73), missing consensus est. of $1.37 if more than $1.22 a year ago, largely thanks to the company's plunging tax rate (Q4 at 21.6%, down 9.2%) on revenue of $136.3BN, also above the est. of $134.83BN, and up 4.1% from the $130.9BN a year earlier (the number includes $1.12BN from membership and other income, down 5.8% y/y). For the full fiscal year 2018, total revenue was $500.3 billion, an increase of $14.5 billion, or 3.0%.

Samsung has provided confirmation that iPhone X sales are way below Apple's estimates for the much-hyped, tenth anniversary special. The miscalculation could end up benefitting Android owners.

News that public demand for the £999 phone was falling short of expectations came over the Christmas holidays, with Bloomberg reporting that what was supposed to be an initial order of 50 million units had been reduced to 30 million.

But Apple may have downgraded demand estimates even further. Nikkei now confirms that Samsung, Apple's OLED panel supplier, is cutting production in response to Apple's lower expectations.

"Samsung Display now plans to manufacture organic light-emitting diode panels for 20 million or fewer iPhones at the South Chungcheong site in the January-March quarter. The initial goal was to supply panels for 45 million to 50 million iPhones," the FT owner's Asian biz news service reports.

False flag: government-orchestrated attack to cause policy that would be impossible without the ‘false’ (and targeted) enemy’s ‘innocent victims.’ The general public can also be targeted for taxes to be laundered for other purposes.
If you’re unfamiliar with false flag attacks, I recommend background here, here, and here. False flags include financial looting of the public to allegedly pay for policies to combat the fake enemies, such as the US Department of War Defense admitting they “lost” $6.5 trillion, and a total between DoD and HUD admitting to have “lost” $21 trillion.

$21 trillion is ~$200,000 per average US household of $50,000 annual income. If your household earned, say, $150,000, then you’ve been looted by a share of ~$600,000.

aplaintruth.info's sharp 12-minute video walks you through recent and historical evidence to demonstrate some of these false flag events:

I’ve been chronicling the slow demise of B&N for years now, watching the company bleed out, drop by drop, until it has become a shell of its former value. B&N was a cultural center in places without cultural centers. It was a stopover on rainy days in New York, Chicago, and Cleveland and it was a place you could go to get your kids’ first books.

That’s mostly over now. On Monday the company laid off 1,800 people. This offered a cost savings of $40 million. But that’s particularly interesting. That means each of those people made an average of $22,000 or so per year and minimum wage workers – hourly folks who are usually hit hardest during post-holiday downturns – would be making $15,000. In fact, what B&N did was fire all full time employees at 781 stores.

The drip-drip-drip death spiral of what was once the world's most systemically dangerous bank continues as Bloomberg reports Deutsche Bank has started cutting at least another 250 jobs at its corporate and investment bank units.

These new firings, which could widen to more than 500, according to Bloomberg's sources, comes after bonus payments that Chief Executive Officer John Cryan said were on the “generous” side, helped push the business in the red.